Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Josh Tolan is the CEO of Spark Hire, a video-powered hiring network that connects job seekers and employers through video resumes and online interviews. Connect with him and Spark Hire on Facebook and Twitter.

You’ve researched the company and practiced your interview answers. What else is there to worry about? Unfortunately, many candidates flub their interview attire and make themselves undesirable hires in the process. Here are some of the worst fashion horror stories and what you can learn before you suit up for your next job interview:

You’re Not an Employee Yet

Companies come in all different shapes and sizes — and all different levels of formality. One of the biggest mistakes job seekers make is to show up for the interview dressed like an employee instead of a candidate.

“Since we’re a casual work environment with no dress code, we occasionally get the candidate that matches our attire and it comes off as overly presumptuous, overconfident or just plain sloppy,” said August Nielsen, HR Manager of Veterans United Home Loans.

Instead, you should dress for a job at least one rung on the career ladder above the one for which you’re applying. This will be highly impressive to your interviewer and show just how seriously you’re taking this opportunity. Plus, it will convey the message to your potential employer that you’re interested in moving up and bettering yourself.

“I also interviewed a guy that wore old tennis shoes with a suit. What was that all about?” Nielsen wondered. “They weren’t even new tennis shoes.”

Remember, the interview is not the right moment to try out a quirky new style. You’re not Mark Zuckerberg, and hoodies or old tennis shoes won’t make an impressive interview statement.

You Forgot Your Pants

A recent survey showed six out of ten companies use video interviews in the hiring process. So, chances are, you’ll have one — and you can’t afford to think the video interview is somehow less formal than a face-to-face meeting — it’s not.

Just because the interviewer is looking directly at your top half doesn’t mean you can ignore what you wear below the waist.

“We had a candidate who was very impressive from the waist up,” said Sandi Webster, Principal for Consultants 2 Go. “However, he had to run to his printer for a sheet we had sent and he was wearing pajama bottoms.”

It’s important to dress exactly as you would for any in-person meeting. While video interviewing provides the luxury of interviewing from home, you should still present yourself as if you’re going to the office. Not only does it help you avoid the pajama debacle, but also it helps give you a psychological edge. If you’re dressed for the part, you’ll be more likely to act the part, as well.

You’re Repping Other Companies

Because your clothes tell a story about your candidacy, if you don’t pay attention to the small details, employers will think you’ll miss the big picture on the job as well.

“If you’re interviewing at LL Bean, don’t wear J. Crew. If you’re interviewing at CNA Insurance, please don’t carry a portfolio emblazoned with the Prudential logo,” said Lida Citroen, branding specialist and founder of LIDA360. “These small missteps make the interviewer question your attention to detail and commitment to going the extra mile for the job.”

Instead, keep things neutral. It’s good practice to stay away from loud prints or company logos altogether, which might be a distraction anyway. So, swap your branded briefcase for a plain case to avoid any issues.

You Didn’t Check the Thermometer

Job interviews make many candidates extremely nervous. If you live in a hot climate or your interview is during a hot summer day, this can be a recipe for a sweaty disaster.

Resume writer and career counselor Gaye Weintraub remembers a job candidate who showed up for the job interview with professional attire that was too tight, and he had giant sweat stains under his arms.

“While he dressed appropriately for his interview, it was difficult to get past the sweat stains and his unbelievably red face. I felt sorry for him, which is not the type of reaction any job seeker wants from an interviewer,” Weintraub said.

It’s important not to forget you are only human, and the combination of nerves and raising temperatures can be lethal. Instead, Weintraub advises candidates to bring an extra shirt along if the temperatures rise and the candidate is prone to sweating. This way, job seekers can change in a nearby bathroom before the interview and appear fresh and ready for the actual meeting.

“I tell my clients that it takes an interviewer only a few seconds to form an opinion of them. It is imperative that when they walk into the room, they are well-groomed, well-dressed, smell nice and have a smile,” Weintraub said.

You Treated the Interview Like a Tailgate

You want to dress for your interview, not for your next social engagement. Catherine Bell, former fashion designer and President of PRIME Impressions tells the story of how a man showed up for a mass interview for Sears wearing shorts and a sleeveless tank top. To top it all off, he was also holding an open can of beer in his hand.

“He obviously had another agenda outside of landing a job that day,” Bell said.

Carving out time in your hectic life for an interview can be tough, especially if you already have a job keeping you busy. It’s important, however, to focus all your attention on the interview at hand, instead of what else you have going on for the rest of the day. Turn off your mobile devices so nothing will beep, vibrate or chirp during your interview. And if you’re planning on tailgating after your interview, leave the drinks in the cooler.

If you can avoid some of these fashion pitfalls, you’ll be able to impress hiring managers with your appearance, so what you wear doesn’t detract from what you say.

What are some of the worst job-interview fashion mistakes you’ve seen? Share in the comments.

Technical difficulties are your responsibility. They’re not always your fault. Those are two different things. But they are your responsibility. Famous author and management expert, Tom Peters told me he books two completely separate flights to events he’s paid to speak at, in case something happens with one of them. Sure, it costs more, he told me, but that way, I have done what I can to ensure my safe and timely arrival to satisfy my client’s contract.

I’m reminded of this today because I was working on a video interview I did and it collapsed. I didn’t do anything to cause it. It’s not technically my fault, but it’s my responsibility. The problem, of course, is that it’s an interview. And because I now have no file, I now have to sheepishly request a repeat interview. Sometimes, this can be accomplished, and I imagine the person involved will grant me another shot. Other times, not so much. I shudder to imagine what would’ve happened if my interview with Sir Richard Branson hadn’t saved properly. Well, I know what would’ve happened: I’d have been left with nothing.

The Three A’s Apply Here

In the restaurant business, I was taught The Three A’s: acknowledge, apologize, act. Acknowledge that something happened that shouldn’t have happened. Apologize (without making excuses). Act on the problem so that you can hopefully ensure no repeats. This is probably the most important part of what you should take away from this post today. When something goes wrong, it’s your responsibility (not fault), and you should practice the Three A’s as soon as you can. (I sent a letter to my colleague almost immediately after it crashed and I found that I wouldn’t be able to recover the file.)

And Then, Move Forward

Accept that something happened, see if there’s a Tom Peters approach to doubling down on mitigating the risk, if that makes sense, and work forward. That’s all you can do.

To that end, how often are you backing up your files? If you answer this with “I should” or anything other than “daily” or “weekly,” reconsider. And by the way, should you feel especially awesome that you’re an early adopter and have backed up to a cloud service, you might consider doubling that. Why? What if one of these businesses shuts down? If you’ve never seen the TechCrunch Dead Pool, it’s time to read up. Businesses close (sometimes abruptly) all the time. Back up.

Are we good on this?

And sorry for anyone I’ve ever caused frustration through a technical error. The more you use technology (especially bleeding edge), the more chances you have to fail.

They’re hot now but do mash-up apps have a future? We talk with Brandon Leonardo, cofounder of the Pinterest/ Instagram combo Pinstagram, to find out. We also pitch him a few of our ideas, including “Shazump,” “Spotifurious,” and “Angry Fruit Ninjas.” Let the investment cash flow!

Brandon Leonardo is one of the cocreators of Pinstagram, a “mash-up app” that combines features of… you guessed it. In essence, it takes the functionality of Instagram and splashes it in the elegant waterfall layout familiar to Pinterest fans. Pinstagram recently debuted its iPad app (and rose to be the No. 1 new and notable app in the Photo and Video category this week). Fast Company caught up with Leonardo to talk about the future of the mash-up app, and to pitch him a few ideas of our own.

FAST COMPANY: Tell me the origin story of Pinstagram.

BRANDON LEONARDO: Pek Pongpaet, his cofounder and I were having lunch on a Friday, joking around: “Pinterest is a huge company, and so is Instagram. What would happen if we just smashed them together?” We were just laughing about it. But then you could see the wheels starting to turn in Pek’s head. He brought it up a couple more times: “I think Pinstagram would be really cool,” and I kind of chuckled. The next morning at noon Pek called me and said, “You’re never gonna believe what I built. Look at your Dropbox.” By that time he had pretty much gotten the entire site designed. We went into hackathon mode, and by Sunday we were basically done with the initial version we launched with.

Are you in dialogue with Instagram or Pinterest? Aren’t you running afoul of laws here?

Pinterest’s waterfall layout was not invented by Pinterest. It’s a jQuery plug-in someone created a couple years ago and released it open-source. Pinterest gets credit for making it famous, but it’s not necessarily copyrightable. On the Instagram side, we’re using their public API. And it’s kind of a win-win: we’re sending them lots of likes, comments, and actions.

It seems like the sort of thing where either you get a cease-and-desist letter, or you get acquired.

No one has sent us a cease-and-desist letter. In fact we got coffee with a Pinterest engineer last week. The founder of Pinterest has actually used Pinstagram. On the Instagram side, no one’s contacted us.

You built an iPad app before an iPhone app. Why?

Instagram’s already on the iPhone. We’ll never be a better Instagram than Instagram. What we can do is build the best iPad viewer.

Let’s talk more about this idea of the app mash-up. How exactly do you splice the genes, and is there an island where you put your failed experiments?

You take the best pieces of each. The benefit to having a hackathon, is you have a severe focus on only what’s necessary. This is Pek’s and my third project together. The other ones are running, but this is the one that took off like crazy. But having an island sounds like a great idea. The island where source code goes is GitHub.

Do you think there will be more app mash-ups, more “Grey Albums” of the app world?

I think building products, period, is good. Any time you’re creating something and putting it out in to the world, you get a little bit closer to perfect. Nothing anyone has ever built has been perfect. But you keep improving on little things, and you get closer and closer. If you want to do a mash-up, you should do it.

Good. Because I want to pitch some mash-up apps to you.

Okay.

“DoodleJitter.” It’s a mash-up of Doodle Jump and Twitter. You can only play the game for 140 seconds or less.

That’s about how long I play DoodleJump right now.

How about a mixture of Shazam and Bump called “Shazump”? You use it to quickly exchange songs.

Do you want me to rate these?

Yeah, if you were a VC, how much money would you give me?

The music business is the worst business to be in, so I’d say no. Spotify is the only one I’ve really seen be successful.

OK, how about a mash-up of Spotify and Epicurious, called “Spotifurious.” You use it to stream unlimited food.

Could you use that in other parts of the world? I don’t think the U.S. needs more food.

“Angry Fruit Ninjas.” It’s just a much more violent version of Angry Birds.

Oh yeah… Absolutely. That sounds like a winner. That one I would give you the most money for. Throw some zombies in there, and in three years, you’ll be acquiring Zynga.

We chat with Chet Kanojia of Aereo, the new TV-where-and-when-you-want-it service that has a few legal troubles. Could Aereo finally disrupt the loathed cable bundle–and TV altogether?

Chet Kanojia is the CEO of Aereo, a Barry Diller-backed, TV-in-your-browser platform that launched in mid-March in a limited New York City release. For $12 a month, Aereo allows its users to watch live broadcast TV on any Apple device of their choosing (plus Roku), in high-definition. Users can also make DVR recordings that are stored in the cloud. I’ve sampled the beautifully-designed service, whose user interface offers just about the cleanest online TV experience imaginable. For now, Aereo is limited to basic over-the-air TV: no cable options yet.

At launch, Aereo was immediately beset by legal challenges from the New York media companies whose content Aereo redistributes. (How exactly Aereo does so is fascinating, and involves lots of dime-sized antennae stored somewhere in Brooklyn.) Earlier this week, a judge dismissed one of the claims of the lawsuit, but two claims of copyright infringement remain. On Wednesday, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed friend-of-the-court briefs arguing in Aereo’s favor. We caught up with Kanojia to talk about his disruptive technology.

FAST COMPANY: In the age of Netflix and Hulu Plus, consumers seem to expect about a $9-a-month price point for online TV. Why should they pay you $12 a month for content they could potentially get for free?

CHET KANOJIA: Simplicity and convenience. When you get it free and over the air, you don’t get DVR, and you don’t get the ability to place-shift. You’d have to get a device like Tivo, plus a Slingbox, and it’s cumbersome and complicated. But I’d love people to do that more and more. The more people that understand that this highly compelling content is right there for free, the better it is for us. You’ve been trained by the cable companies to buy the whole thing at once, whether you watch it or not. Now it’s time to start trying to take a stand.

How did you choose the $12 price point?

Um, we made it up… That’s a half-true answer. These are early days, and we just put something out there that we would like to get some reactions to. From a value perspective, if you called a cable company today and said, “I just want over-the-air channels in HD and the ability to place-shift,” it’d be $75 or more per month. Just a DVR box is $18 a month with tax. My belief on this whole thing, and it’s a subtle but important point, is that what we are doing is the dislocation of the packaging of technology with content. We’re purely technology; we’re not making you buy a package. That dislocation has a really interesting side effect, because the cost curves of technology only come down. As we drive the cost curves down, you may see us do things that are very innovative in terms of pricing.

For example?

Instead of a monthly basis, it could be based on usage. Twelve-bucks-a-month is a starting point, while we understand what utilization patterns look like. We want to make sure people get what they pay for, rather than just some random-ass number that people make up.

You’ve been live about two months. Care to share user numbers?

We don’t release numbers, but we have a subscriber base that’s several thousand deep. And we haven’t even enabled all platforms yet. We want to come to Androids and PCs.

And geographically? Any plans to move beyond New York?

Expansion plans are a bit of a state secret around here. Mainly because they don’t really exist. Having said that, our technology is designed to be highly modular, and we could be in 50 markets if we chose to do that. But we have a diligent team, and our goal is to minimize foolishness. A lot of companies go hog wild with expansion, and they don’t understand who their customers are.

Let’s talk a bit about your legal troubles.

All I would probably say is this: Our technology is built with three fundamental principles in mind. First, there was a requirement that the broadcast license was granted in the consumers’ interest. Second, it’s established in the law that the consumer is allowed to create recordings for themselves. Third, the consumer is allowed to rent equipment for the purposes of creating these recordings. Those are the three principles that bind Aereo.

What’s a potential vision of the future for Aereo?

“A lot of companies go hog wild with expansion, and they don’t understand who their customers are.”

The dream-come-true would be to really create a parallel ecosystem in which buyers and sellers of content come together in a way that makes sense. If you get a sufficient mass of consumers on the platform, new content will emerge, programmed for them. Say I’m a new internet-based news channel: I might price my news channel at $1.99, and users wouldn’t have to take 55 other channels to get value out of mine. Even the CEO of Time Warner Cable yesterday went on the record saying that there are too many networks, and nobody watches them all.

I think if you got HBO GO on board with Aereo as it is now, that’s all I’d need.

You’re not unique in that. The purpose of Aereo is to create a platform, that once you get to a certain size, content owners can’t ignore it, and they’re forced to come and sell to you.

Would you ever want to finance new content yourself, like Netflix?

I want to be clear in this: the goal is to create just a technology platform. We’re not a content company. That’s somebody else’s business. We are trying to decouple technology and content.

Is the goal to go as a la carte as possible? So I could just subscribe to and pay for certain shows, even within certain channels?

I can’t say what the future’s gonna be like. The baby step is to enable a la carte channel access. The goal is to break towards enough granularity that you have sufficient value in it.

If Aereo’s only legacy was to light a fire under companies that should have already been providing services like Aereo, would you be happy?

The reason for me to start Aereo was a strong personal passion for creating an alternative to the options out there today. To the extent that that happened, Aereo would be a massive success. I would contend we’ve already started the debate in a meaningful way.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Social media is more than a digital water cooler for TV and movies. The global conversation that takes place around events and the experiences people share based on what they watch teaches us about consumer preferences. More importantly, their activity influences behavior. Behavior counts for everything. Studying it is just the beginning of course. In order to understand and eventually steer behavior, we must translate activity into insights and in turn, translate insights into actionable strategies and programs.

The Hollywood Reporter recently published an exclusive poll about social media led by market research firm Penn Schoen Berland. As the report opens, THR notes, “There’s a sea change afoot in how Americans discover and consume entertainment.”

According to the study, 88% of respondents view social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook as a new form of entertainment.

Hours Spent Each Week Doing Online Activities

Social networking and listening to music top the activities for Generation-C and each is greater than the time spent watching full-length movies or television shows on a weekly basis.

- 8 Hours: Visiting social networking sites.
- 8 Hours: Listening to music
- 7 Hours: Watching full-length television shows.
- 4 Hours: Watching full-length movies.
- 4 Hours: Watching video clips (e.g. YouTube)
- 4 Hours: Instant messaging

How Social Networking Impacts Entertainment Choices

The report found that 79% of connected television viewers visit Facebook while watching TV.

Pollster Jon Penn notes, “Social media is the connective tissue that enables consumers to multitask during their entertainment experiences by connecting with others and sharing their opinions.”

Additionally, 83% surf the web while viewing TV and 41% tweet about the show they’re watching.

When we look at the psychology of engagement, this next stat becomes a bit more revealing. Of those who post about TV shows, 76% do so live and 51% do so to feel connected to others who might also be watching.

Comedies, Reality TV Put Social in Social Media

Social networking is in its own right a reality show made for the web. It is its own form of entertainment. And, as the study found, an overwhelming majority of people agree. When we look at the types of programs viewers are most likely to post about while watching TV, Comedy, Reality TV, Sports and News take the top four spots.

Types of shows people are most likely to post about while watching TV:
56%: Comedy
46%: Reality TV
38%: Sports
26%: Cable News

Social Media on the Silver Screen

Digital Influence is often misunderstood, but it is potent. Influence is causing effect or changing behavior. Here, we can see that those who Tweet about movies actually influence the behavior of those who follow them.

One out of three connected consumers saw a movie in a theater because of something they read on a social network.

The report found that horror and other younger-skewing film genres benefit most from social networking. For example, more than 6% of respondents saw Paranormal Activity 3 because of social networking activity. One can assume based on psychological studies, that this form of social commerce is driven by either #FOMO (fear of missing out) or social proof.

Social Networking in Theaters…Really?

Prior to watching any movie in theaters nowadays, viewers must sit through a short spot that reminds them not to use their phones during the theater. Aside from the ringing adding unnecessary distractions to other theatergoers, the bright white screen is also disruptive as it tends to light up an otherwise dark room.

However, social networking is not limited to at-home movie watching. 55% of moviegoers have texted during a movie. Film moguls and theater owners should take note: The poll also found that an overwhelming majority of 18-to-34-year-olds believe using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter while watching a movie in a theater would actually add to their experience. Nearly half would be interested in going to theaters that allowed texting and web surfing.

Penn added, “Millennials want their public moviegoing experience to replicate their own private media experiences.”

The same can’t be said for all consumers though as 75% of respondents said that using a mobile phone would take away from the experience.

Additionally 24% and 21% have posted about what they’re watching in theaters on Facebook and Twitter respectively.

Social Media Multitasking ≠ Distraction

Gen-C is often falsely diagnosed with a thin attention span. Yet in reality, Gen-C focuses on all that’s important to them many times at the same time. They’re just wired differently and rather than challenge it or try to debunk its value, our energy should instead focus on understanding how multitasking adds to the experience.

When asked what other activities are performed while social networking, watching programs on TV was by far the most popular at 66% followed by watching movies on TV at 50%. Interestingly, 11% stated that they watch a movie in a theater while networking.

So, what are viewers saying while multitasking between networking and watching TV. It’s a bit of give and take as 67% will listen to or read what others have to say and 33% will most likely express their own opinions or thoughts.

Social Media Impact on TV Viewing Choices

How can social media drive tune-in? That’s often one of the top questions on the mind of TV marketers. As of now, serendipity certainly plays a role in contributing to tune-in. Three out of 10 people watched a TV show because of something they read or saw on a social network.

Social Media Spawns a New Genre of Critics

In the age of social media, viewers have become participants in real-time experiences. And many, are also becoming critics simply what they say and share online. Social network activity certainly influences behavior, but to what extent requires greater study.

The study found that 72% of respondents post about movies on social networks after watching a film. We can assume that those expressions are rooted in opinion and we can also hypothesis that these shared opinions in some way affect the impression of those who see them. At the same time, 20% post before and 8% post during a viewing.

This Just In…

News no longer breaks, it Tweets. Those who run social activity streams all day will tell you that they learn about news on Twitter first which then drives them to a online or broadcast news source to learn more. But, 31% and 28% of respondents reported that their main source for breaking news is cable news stations news web sites respectively.

I wonder about that data point however as it’s not clear if it is the primary source or the main source. The fact that the study found that social networks make up 19% of their breaking news source provides some clarity, but I still question the source of the flashpoint.

Social Media is Music to My Ears

It’s not just TV shows or movies that benefit from social media. All forms of entertainment lend to peer-to-peer behavioral influence. THR found that musicians also benefit from social media with 70% of respondents listening to music by an artist based on what a friend posted on a social networking site.

For those who saw or read about my interview with Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins at SXSW, certainly heard how he believes fans must step up their support for the artists that they love. And, sharing what you’re listening to is certainly one way to contribute, whether it’s through frictionless sharing apps such as Spotify or stated support by Tweeting, Facebooking or blogging support.

Social Media Tests Positive for Influence

Based on the work of Robert Cialdini, I analyzed six universal heuristics and the role they play in consumer decision making in social commerce. Referred to as “thinslicing,” consumers tend to ignore most information available and instead ‘slice off’ a few relevant information or behavioral cues that are often social to make intuitive decisions.

The THR study surfaced that more than half of respondents (56%) believe that social networks play an important role in making entertainment-related decisions. Across every genre of entertainment, respondents felt that positive posts held greater influence over their decisions than those that are negative.

Specifically, 82% are influenced in the music they listen to; 76% in the TV shows they watch; 75% in the movies they choose to see; and 74% in the video games they play.

Facebook vs. Twitter

I often refer to Twitter, Facebook and activity stream apps as new attention dashboards. THR asked respondents which networks they used and how. The answers help in how we better understand what’s of interest to consumers.

Of all respondents, 98% are Facbook and 56% are Twitter members. In terms of daily visits, 9 out of 10 visit Facebook and 1 of 2 visit Twitter every day.

When asked about who and what they follow, participants shared the following…

Companies/Brands:
Facebook = 49%
Twitter = 37%

TV Shows:
Facebook = 49%
Twitter = 30%

Movies
Facebook = 43%
Twitter = 25%

Actors/Actresses
Facebook = 32%
Twitter = 41%

Reality TV Stars
Facebook = 16%
Twitter = 23%

Journalists/Reports
Facebook = 9%
Twitter = 15%

I find it interesting that consumers connect more with brands, movies, or shows on Facebook whereas Twitter is the preferred choice for connecting with people. Marketers should take note in how people form fandoms and communities, where and how.

The State of Movie Marketing

Considering the behavior of Gen-C as well as all other consumers, marketers can’t rule out any form of promotion or engagement without understanding the balance and how each contribute to consumerism.

The study found that even through social networking is playing a significant role in movie watching and shared experiences, traditional marketing is still king in how consumers make moviegoing decisions. Trailers and previews are the biggest influence for movie choices at 40%, which can include a variety of sources for where that trailer is viewed (theater, TV, website, Youtube, etc.) TV ads still play a large role in decision making at 20%. Real world word of mouth is also a important source of the selection process at 18%. Only 9% of respondents said that comments or reviews on social networks influenced decisions.

You are Now the Architect of a Multi-Screen Experience

Processing this data is one thing. Interpreting its impact on your strategy for programming, marketing, and engagement is up to you. What’s clear is that what we think about social media, entertainment, and influence and how consumers are behaving can only teach us about how to be more engaging, entertaining, and how to create and steer experiences that matter to consumers and producers. So what’s your second and third screen experience? Have you defined it? If not, this is the time to develop an engaging multi-screen experience because it’s already happening with or without your design.

Image Credit: ShutterstockVia Brian Solis: http://www.briansolis.com

Last week I attended a fascinating forum on paid family leave at the Ford Foundation. As is often the case in any discussion about the demands of work and family, the need for work flexibility was front and center, with the primary challenge being, “How do we get middle managers to support it?”

Middle-manager support can be the difference between success and failure of a work flexibility strategy and, yet, it remains elusive. The advice on how to solve the problem ranges from “Put the policy in place. Tell managers this is the way it is. Reward those who do it and punish those that don’t,” to “You can’t lead a horse to water. I guess you need to wait for the dinosaurs to die off sigh.”

In my experience, a top-down policy and an ultimatum will fail. It only creates more resistance. And waiting for a generation of managers to leave is not only inefficient, but it unnecessarily leaves money on the table as the organization and its people miss out on the benefits of flexible work.

Over the years, we’ve succeeded in getting even some of the most skeptical middle managers on board the work flexibility train. But it requires a larger upfront commitment of resources (e.g. time, money, and people) than it takes to write a policy or rely on attrition. However, the return on that investment is a group of middle managers who not only accept work flexibility but understand how to use it as a powerful tool to run their business.

Here are five the ways we’ve gotten middle managers to support flexible work:

Ask middle managers to help articulate the “why” or business case for work flexibility in your organization, and then let them participate in determining what that flexibility will look like.   Interview middle managers–the supporters of flexibility as well as the naysayers. Ask them why they think it is or is not important to be more flexible in the way work is done. Encourage them to tell you how it will solve their business challenges. Gather groups of managers and employees together to expand this shared vision they’ve created. At the end of the process, people feel invested in this approach to flexible work that they developed themselves, bottom up and top down.

Allow middle managers to freely express the “prices” they fear they will pay, while also helping them to focus on the payoffs of work flexibility.  I love naysayers. When I am consulting to a group of managers about work flexibility and one of them has the courage to say, “Yeah, but I’m going to be left doing more work,” I want to hug them. They are articulating one of the very real fears many of the middle managers have about changing the way work is done. When you give middle managers a chance to share those concerns freely, they are able to move beyond them. They start to see the long list of benefits from having a more flexible approach to work. But if they can’t, they get stuck behind the fears.

Make sure that work flexibility in the organization is built on a partnership model where employees have as much responsibility for the success of it as the managers do.  Too many organizations put the responsibility for all aspects of work flexibility on the middle manager. They are expected to figure out what will work for the employee, how it will be managed day-to-day, and how the work will get done. No wonder managers don’t support it! When work flexibility is a partnership between the employee and the manager, the employee takes the lead and presents a plan outlining the type of flexible work that meets their needs and the needs of the business. The employee works with the manager to ensure their job is getting done. And, if the flexibility is not succeeding, they figure out a solution together, or they agree to end it. This is a much more appealing approach. Unfortunately, very few businesses prepare their employees and middle managers to make this type of partnership succeed.

Acknowledge that middle managers are people, too, who are increasingly under pressure to deliver more with less.  Middle managers have lives outside of work as well, and might also enjoy greater flexibility to manage his or her work/life fit. Also, the pressure to achieve quarterly goals must be acknowledged in the discussion. To ignore that pressure causes the idea of flexibility to lose credibility with middle managers.

Establish the expectation, at the beginning, that any issues related to work flexibility that cause the group not to meet its goals will be resolved by everyone, not just the manager.  For example, a manager finds that having two people in the group teleworking from home on the same day causes difficulty with customer coverage. That manager would call the group together and ask them to help her come up with a way to solve the problem. She wouldn’t be expected to take it upon herself to make it work.

As long as we make middle managers solely responsible for the success of something that they don’t help create, that doesn’t acknowledge their realities, and that they don’t fully understand, flexible work will continue to hit the roadblock of their resistance and fail.

What have you found works to get middle managers to support a more flexible approach to how, when, and where work is done?

Image: Flickr user smcgee

Photo: NASA

We’re less than a week away from the scheduled launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, and today the company will fire the engines at the Kennedy Space Center with the rocket firmly anchored to the ground. The static test is somewhat unusual for a rocket seven days before launch, but the test is part of a full dress rehearsal for the SpaceX team. Last week marked the final full simulation between NASA and SpaceX for the part of the mission that will take place in orbit as the company prepares to become the first private spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.

The launch of the Falcon 9 and Dragon has been delayed a few times since its initial planned flight in February. The last scheduled time was for today. But SpaceX founder and chief designer Elon Musk told us last week there were some final adjustments needed to the software responsible for controlling the Dragon during its maneuvers near the ISS. “It’s been too sensitive to issues and has aborted when it shouldn’t have aborted,” he said from his desk at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. “Essentially Dragon got scared and ran away, when it shouldn’t have.”

According to the release, today’s launch rehearsal will include “all countdown processes as though it were launch day” and “The exercise will end with all nine engines firing at full power for two seconds.” SpaceX will broadcast today’s static test live beginning at 2:30 p.m. ET with the firing of the nine Merlin engines expected at 3:00 p.m. ET.

Following the test, SpaceX engineers will make sure that everything performed as expected and that the rocket is ready for next Monday’s launch. Three days after the launch, the Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to begin the demonstration maneuvers that will eventually lead to the docking with the ISS.

Only the United States, Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency have sent spacecraft to the ISS. If successful, the SpaceX mission next week will fulfill several requirements from NASA to become a regular cargo transportation vehicle for the ISS. But SpaceX and Musk continue to emphasize that success is only one of the possible outcomes. “This is a new rocket and spacecraft,” he told us in our interview last week, “the docking system is being tested for the first time.”

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft on its launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo: NASA

Musk emphasized the complexity and risk involved in spaceflight last week. But he had the upbeat optimism of an industry veteran when describing the approach to success, dismissing the possibility of failure as just another step. “If something does go wrong we’ll fix it and we’ll be back on it on a subsequent mission.”

SpaceX is one of two companies, along with Orbital Sciences, competing for contracts to deliver cargo to low Earth orbit for NASA under the Commercial Orbital Transportation System program. If it successfully delivers the cargo, SpaceX will have an edge on the competition for flying astronauts to orbit. The company’s Dragon spacecraft (pictured at top preparing for next week’s launch), has been developed to be capable of flying humans into space as well as cargo and is competing with three other companies for flying astronauts to low Earth orbit. Earlier this year SpaceX tested new rocket engines that will be used on the Dragon as part of its emergency abort system for launches, as well as for precision landings upon returning to Earth.

Of course Musk reminded us last week that all of this work is just one of the steps towards his eventual goal of multi-planetary life. His reason for developing all of this space technology is for making trips to Mars, something he thinks could cost just $500,000.

Wired will continue its ongoing coverage of the new commercial space race and broadcast next week’s launch live at our new Open Space blog.

India is already known as one of the world’s IT powerhouses. Angela Saini, author of the new book, Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking Over the World, believes the country is also becoming one of the world’s hubs for innovation and scientific ingenuity.

Over the past few years, BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) has become a buzzy acronym for technology- and finance-watchers. India is already known for call centers, IT development, and expatriate coders. The country is also home to one of the world’s fastest-growing middle classes. Angela Saini, the British author of the new Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking Over The World, believes that India is also becoming an innovation center to be reckoned with, and a world leader in tech.

Fast Company recently spoke with Saini about India’s tech industry, the growth of Indian startups, and what the future holds for Indian innovators. Geek Nation is being released in the U.S. on May 1.

FAST COMPANY: Why do you consider India to be a “Geek Nation”?

ANGELA SAINI: I grew up in London, and it’s difficult to grow up in this city and not notice that every school has at least one geeky Indian kid. I was the geeky Indian kid in my class. My dad is a geek, many of my cousins are geeks, and more generally, India is famous for producing doctors, university professors, and engineers who work all over the world. India itself is not a world leader in science and technology yet but it does have a culture that strongly favors these things, above anything else. So Geek Nation was my journey to figure out why, and also where that ambition is taking it.

I have to admit, as a science journalist, I started out with a big measure of skepticism–I mean, India has a weak scientific publication record compared to the U.S. and Europe–but the trajectory it’s on is just incredible. I think the rest of the world underestimates just what hundreds of thousands of committed young scientists and engineers can achieve. Then again, President Obama gets it. If you look at his speeches on science and education, he often mentions the growth of India as one reason that the U.S. needs to stay competitive.

The subtitle of my book is a bit bombastic, but the contents are more balanced. I look at scientific research and technologies that are having a big effect on ordinary people’s lives–the good as well as the bad–and the ambitious projects that the government hopes will help secure India’s future superpower status. At the end of the day, I’m just a journalist. I’m not trying to argue a point, but rather to take an honest picture of a country through my geeky lens.

What was the most surprising thing you uncovered while researching your book?

There wasn’t a day in my research that I wasn’t surprised by something. I traveled the length of India, north to south, and met such fascinating characters. What impressed me most is that so many Indian researchers have such a social aspect to their work. They want to help India’s poor and vulnerable, as well as to do good science.

One interviewee, Sujatha Narayanan, was a tuberculosis researcher I met in Chennai. A few years ago, when she didn’t have enough healthy volunteers for her work, she started running tests on herself. One day she found some TB bacteria in a tube that had been in her throat, which meant she may have accidentally infected herself. She had to undertake a grueling drug treatment for months, which she believes triggered her diabetes. She put her life on the line for her work, but it has not diminished her passion or her commitment to science.

What role are ethnic Indian immigrants/returnees from the West playing in India’s tech industry? Are they a major factor?

The success of India’s tech industry has encouraged a lot of young engineers and scientists who left the country, in the big brain drain, to return. And they’re playing a big part in shaping the future of the industry. Not only are they bringing their expertise and experience, but they are also bringing the culture of places like Silicon Valley. In Bangalore these days there are meetups and cool conferences for young techies and designers, just like you get in San Francisco. There’s this buzz about the big cities, which is making them an exciting environment to be in. But it’s not just in IT–I met scientists in all kinds of fields who had chosen to come back to India because they felt the opportunities were improving and that they could make a difference to the country.

Can you explain why you compared India’s current situation to Japan in the early 1970s?

When you read academic studies about the attitudes that people had toward Japan’s technology industry in its early days, it’s very similar to what people have been saying about India recently–that scientists and engineers are hardworking and educated, but not particularly creative or original. In Japan’s case of course that all changed, giving rise to a truly powerful scientific nation. I think similar stirrings are happening in India now. There are shoots of creativity all over the country, particularly in areas like biotechnology, life sciences, and computing. I don’t want to forecast what might happen, because I don’t think anyone can know for sure, but India does at least have the ambition and willpower to want to be the next scientific superpower.

You wrote about jugaad–the power of improvising to solve problems–in a recent article. How do you think that has influenced India’s tech industry?

I didn’t write about jugaad in my book. But yeah, I wrote an article about it recently, because it is such a fascinating phenomenon. Jugaad is a very broad-brush word, meaning something like getting things done by hook or by crook. So for example, in rural areas, people will throw together tractor engines and bits of wood to make trucks, and in the urban slums, people will recycle old newspapers and rework appliances to make new ones. It’s really driven by poverty, but it has inspired some Indian companies to look at frugal, mass innovation for India’s domestic market–for example, the TATA Nano car. But I don’t think it’s had a big impact on India’s mainstream technology industry, which is focused on creating high-quality products and services that can sell overseas.

What do you see as the strong points and weak points of India’s tech industry?

India’s tech industry is great at business innovation. India’s outsourcing model for IT work has been incredibly successful and, on the back of this, it’s managed to build a profitable industry that is globally competitive. But it’s less good at genuine technological innovation. India simply hasn’t yet produced a company of the caliber of IBM or Microsoft. But that isn’t to say it will never do it. It certainly wants to, but I have a feeling it may come from the younger generation, which is more free in its thinking and creative.

This interview has been condensed and edited for length and readability.

Geek Nation was released this past March in the United Kingdom and is currently awaiting U.S. release.

Image: Angela Saini

Via Mashable: http://www.mashable.com

For the second installment of our weeklong investigation into the business of jerky, we talk to Brian Levin of Perky Jerky. Though its mascot’s presidential campaign is floundering, Perky Jerky posted its first profits last month.

Brian Levin is the founder and “Chairman of the Herd” of Perky Jerky, a brand of caffeinated jerky. Before he got into the performance-enhancing meat snacks space (yes, it’s a space), Levin was a tech entrepreneur, selling one company for a reported $15 million and another for an undisclosed sum. But Perky Jerky is his biggest venture yet, as he tells Fast Company in the second installment of Jerky Week.

FAST COMPANY: Thank you for being the second participant in Fast Company’s Jerky Week. Do you think more business publications should have a Jerky Week?

BRIAN LEVIN: I’m surprised the Wall Street Journal hasn’t already done my charcoal pencil sketch.

You’ve said that your story begins with two jerks in a ski lodge.

About seven or eight years ago, a few of my college buddies and I went out on a ski trip in Utah. We had our gear laid out for the next day, and our supplies–energy drinks and jerky. Amongst the craziness, we spilled some Red Bull in the jerky bag. The next morning, the inspiration set in: how come nobody had ever combined the two?

I thought the hard lesson we learned from Four Loko is that when you cross two awesome things, you get a third thing that is so dangerously awesome it may be illegal.

Well, we’re in a heavily regulated industry. We sprinkle a little guarana on it for flavoring effect. The caffeine equivalent is of a Diet Coke. But what we’ve done is go with an all-natural product that’s more healthy than most of the jerkies with unpronounceable additives and preservatives. Our product is much more hand-processed than the stuff you get from Big Jerky.

You sell in funny places. Home Depot? Best Buy?

We call that alternative distribution. Home Depot is a great place, if you think about it. You have a clientele of professional contractors who go in there every morning, so we’ve developed a loyal following. Also, it’s an impulse buy, getting it at the front, which is why we created packaging that stands out. Our marketing strategy is what we call “bovine oral insertion.”

That sounds wrong.

It’s the art of getting meat in mouths. Once people taste it, they get hooked. That’s why we invented the Jerk Man.

You’ve anticipated my next question.

The Jerk Man is the ultimate international man of meat. For us, it’s all about getting meat in mouths, so we came up with exciting and unique ways to sample our product. We came out with a patent-pending Velcro suit of jerky, and we attach sample bags of the product to the suit. The amount of surprise, shock, awe, and delight when you hear the sound of someone ripping the package of meaty goodness off the Jerk Man… it’s really something.

How is the Jerk Man’s campaign for the U.S. presidency going?

I think it’s kind of gone the way of Rick Santorum. The Jerk Man is taking more of a grassroots campaign, trying to drum up more support at the local level to get written onto every state ballot.

As I begin to develop expertise on the jerky beat, I begin to wonder whether jerky brands are really just another form of humor brand.

I can say that with a product like Perky Jerky, you can’t take yourself too seriously, and yet I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.

You started the text-message voting system used on American Idol, selling it for $15 million in 2004.

Yeah, this is my third startup, and the first two were tech. It’s a stark difference. You write software once, you can sell it a million times. With this, you have to actually make a product and sell it.

Are you profitable?

We are.

When did you post your first profits?

Last month. There was a big party here.

When can we expect an IPO?

I don’t think being public is in the cards for us. The Jerk Man doesn’t want to answer to anybody.

Forbes recently called you the 93rd most promising company in America.

I guess that means we got 92 to go. Lots of work ahead!

But why?

We’re in 21,000 stores right now, and hopefully will be in 100,000 by the end of the year. I guess they actually believe it when I tell them we’re gonna be the next Red Bull, the next premium consumer lifestyle brand.

You’re probably doing alright following the sales of your last two companies. But if something makes you absurdly rich, will it be this?

I’m all in. If this were a poker game, all the chips would be in the middle of the table. Honestly, the potential is so big, and jerky is such a huge market, and nobody has really tackled what we’ve done.

A lot of people read Fast Company because they want to have the next big tech startup. But it sounds like maybe they should get into the performance-enhancing meat snacks space instead?

It’s all about versatility. Anybody can be a tech mogul. First I was in tech, then I got into consumer packaged goods. It’s like being a true, versatile athlete. Why can’t I be the Bo Jackson of startups?

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Despite a cheeky promotional claim that profitability is “not something we think about,” Punch has a grand vision of becoming a lucrative tablet publishing platform. But first, a quiz: hedge fund or organic farm?

David Bennahum is the CEO of Punch, a news and entertainment app that launched last week for the iPad. Pulling up Punch on your iPad brings shelves filled with various items; tapping on these loads miniature in-app apps that feature topical, interactive content. (Want to dress a digital Rick Santorum doll? You came to the right place.) Fast Company spoke with Bennahum about Punch’s antecedents–including the historical British satire publication of the same name–as well as its future; Punch has a grand vision of becoming a publishing platform. Despite the claims made around the 0:45 mark in Punch’s self-satirizing promo video (below), the company very much has thought about profitability–perhaps more deeply than most iPad publishers.

The tagline for Punch is “Make Fun.” How does that motto inform the core of Punch?

The idea emerged between Punch founding editor, Radar magazine founder Maer Roshan and myself about two years ago. Both of us, I think, first of all, appreciate the commercial value of satire and comedy as a way into journalism and the news. Secondly we felt the emergence of the tablet was creating a hunger for topical original content that could only exist on a tablet and nowhere else. We had a sense even back then that it was going to be a huge success as a consumer product, and that there would be a limit to how much aggregation and recycling of existing media the tablet consumer would want to get.

What about tablets creates a hunger for original content?

The tablet is the first multipurpose digital device whose only function is the consumption of digital media. The reason you buy an iPad is to consume digital media. If you think you’re gonna use it to do word processing, you’ll be dissatisfied. Why buy a tablet? To be entertained. The tablet is truly its own medium, and with any new form of media, in the first days people will repurpose existing products: Theater was repurposed in the early days of film, and radio was repurposed in the early days of TV. Within a short period of time, it becomes obvious that there’s a bigger opportunity to create original content for the medium. That’s where we are now: Two years after the first iPad hit the market, we’re at a pivot point where there are enough people with a real appetite for original entertainment.

In one sense, Punch is an app; in another, it’s a platform for other, tiny, in-app apps.

Eight months ago we faced a decision: Would the mini-apps be their own apps, which we’d submit to Apple every time? That might take several weeks to deploy. Our CTO Daniel Wyszynski built this fairly unique piece of technology. We had a problem to solve: How do you create an experience that’s native to the tablet and keeps up with the metabolism of popular culture, without having to code all the time? Dan’s a visionary for understanding that opportunity and for building a platform where you can change content in real time.

You launched with 10 mini-apps, including one game where users try to tell the difference between the names of hedge funds or organic farms, and a paper-dolling game where you get to dress Rick Santorum. How often will you reuse these templates, and how often will you roll out entirely new ones?

We’re figuring out what can be franchised as recurring things. Do you want paper dolls as a recurring template, and if so, what should the frequency be? Maybe only once every couple of months, or six times per year. At the same time, the system is extendable. However, every time you add more capability, you have to do an app update, and you don’t want to push too many updates, because people don’t update apps all the time, and there’d be a disconnect where chunks of the audience can’t consume the new content. We finally have the ability to get feedback now, so we need to listen for the next month or so, talk to our audience, and do some research.

Conceiving of your app as a platform allows you to monetize in ways beyond most publishing ventures. What are all your various potential revenue streams?

There are three in the near-term. The first is revenue from people placing sponsored items on the Culture Shelf Punch’s home screen. That’s traditional advertizing, and it’s important. For items to appear on the Culture Shelf, there would be some issue of tone and fit with Punch, like with any magazine. The second is what we call premium upgrades–something where we are able to give a taste of some content, and from there, you can purchase more.

So you would have an in-mini-app purchase?

Exactly. The third revenue stream is in the licensing of the platform, where a publisher would pay us a licensing fee to have the right to use the system, plus some additional revenue based on performance. These would be white-label versions, independent from our own shelves–a turnkey solution for others to release their own apps on the App Store.

And the fourth revenue stream?

The fourth potential revenue stream is the idea that you could subscribe to Punch down the road for some amount of money. That’s a little farther out: We won’t be able to understand the audience’s appetite until we’ve been operating for a little while.

Were you inspired by the legendary British satirical publication, Punch, or is the naming a coincidence?

There’s a reference there. When we had the notion of doing a satirical entertainment app for tablets, the question of naming came up. Appreciating what Punch did in the 19th century in terms of inventing the political cartoon, we thought, “Hey, we’re at the precipice of something equally new, the tablet, and we have to talk about reinventing things like the political cartoon.” Our item called “12 Angry Men” top image reinvents what a cartoon looks like. So there’s some intentional DNA with the Punch name. Also, “punch” suggests what you do with your hands–striking something. You don’t punch the iPad, but you are hitting it with your finger. So the name evokes a gesture. Other inspirations were the original Spy magazine, and things like The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live, as well as Mad Magazine.

What’s the main lesson you hope others draw from this venture?

We’re hoping people realize, first, that there’s something called iPad-native media, and Punch is an example. And second, that it’s a problem to produce this stuff–it’s unusually difficult to create topical content on the iPad–and it shouldn’t be. Programming is detail-oriented, and requires a lot of keystrokes. But it’s a problem that’s been solved in other media; on the web, it’s solved by platforms like WordPress, for example. When browsers first came out, people had to hand-stitch everything; there were no platforms. Because we needed to solve a problem internally, we created the nucleus of a fairly extendable platform ourselves.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

For more from the Fast Talk interview series, click here. Know someone who’d make a good Fast Talk subject? Mention it to David Zax.

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Images: Punch, Wikipedia, Flickr user TheGiantVermin